PDCI Student Encourages Peers to Celebrate Their First Nations Heritage on Orange Shirt Day

(Perth) – While acknowledging it as a sombre day of remembrance, Brandon Cordy used Orange Shirt Day to inspire students to celebrate their First Nations heritage.

Cordy along with other students at Perth and District Collegiate Institute (PDCI)
hosted two Orange Shirt Day assemblies Friday in the school auditorium.
He used the assemblies to educate PDCI students on the negative impact
residential schools had on Canada’s First Nations peoples. He also
encouraged those of First Nations heritage to celebrate it by
self-identifying. Students who did so received bright orange shirts
bearing Woodlands art to be worn as a symbol of pride in that heritage.

“I wanted to make something positive out of this,” he said.

Orange
Shirt Day is held each year on September 30. The campaign encourages
people to wear orange shirts in recognition of the harm caused to First
Nations people by the residential school system. The campaign was
started in Williams Lake, British Columbia in the spring of 2013. It
grew from the story of Phyllis Webstad who
as a child entered a residential school outside of Williams Lake. She
wore a cherished orange shirt given to her by her grandmother, which was
promptly confiscated, before school staff forced her to wear a school
uniform. The orange shirt has become a symbol of the damage residential
schools have wrought on First Nations culture.

Cordy, who comes
from Mohawk and Sioux heritage, told students it was important to
remember the residential schools so their dark history is never
forgotten.

“The residential school system was an attempt by the
Canadian government to assimilate the First Nations people - to make
them fit into (mainstream) society,” said Cordy in an interview. “That
didn’t work so well. In reality, the residential schools were horrible
places where there was emotional abuse, physical abuse, mental abuse and
even reported deaths.

“We need to raise awareness among people
today about what happened so history doesn’t repeat itself. We don’t
want (government) people to ever have that kind of arrogance again.”

The
teen said many of the social problems experienced in First Nations
society can be linked to abuse First Nations people suffered while
living at residential schools.

The teenager added that racist
attitudes still exist in society and he used the assembly to inform
students about what First Nations people have experienced. He showed
both assemblies a video called Coming to Terms about the negative experience of First Nations people in Thunder Bay.

The
assemblies resulted in 21 students with First Nations heritage
self-identifying. The senior is trying to revitalize an FNMI Club at the
school and has invited newly self-identified students to join. He also
hopes to organize a series of assemblies at PDCI in which invited
speakers can discuss issues important to them.

Students attending the assembly said it was informative.

“I
think there was a really big problem with racism (towards First Nations
people),” said Ewan Jordan, a Grade 8 student. “I didn’t know it was a
problem. It will make me think differently about stereotypes.”